a patient, computer vision which is not calculation can remotely analyze it and point to something you might have missed so humans are involved with machinesthat are giving advice remotely through this ubiquitous network is now the cloud . it's really unprecedented in human history to have something like that available to everybody, not just a few rich people or powerful people and to have a growing, having growing at a rate that infrastructure growth rate that again is unprecedented in history. >> we are talking with mark mills, his new book is calling is called the cloud revolution. where talking about the automation and the future of work in particular are particular. >> good afternoon everybody. just a couple of notes at the top. we're all socially distanced. so we've got the majority of the press covering this press conference are on zoom.

the secretary and the chairman will be taking questions both in the room and on zoom. given the unique circumstances and their pressing schedule i've asked you to limit your follow-up questions if you can so we can get a chance to get through everybody and i'll be coming back to call it towards the end of it here as we get ready to close. but the secretary and chairman opening statements and i'll stop talking they can deliver their opening statements and we will get right to the questions. >> thanks to everybody. i'm glad to be with you. i know you're covering this situation in europe closely. and so i want to update you on what the department is doing to support ukraine and to uphold our ironclad commitment to our nato allies . as you know for months now russia has been deploying forces to crimea. along ukraine's border including in belarus.

it has progressed at a consistent and steady pace involving tens of thousands of russian troops. and it is being supported by increased russian naval activity in the northern atlantic and mediterranean sea. while we don't believe that president clinton has made a final decision to use these forces against ukraine, he clearly now has that capability. and there are multiple options available to him including the seizure of cities and significant territories but also corset acts or provocative political acts like the recognition of breakaway territories. indeed, we are seeing russian state media spouting off now about alleged activities in the eastern ukraine. this is straight out of the russian playbook. and they're not fooling us. we remain focused on russian

disinformation including the potential creation of pretext for further invasion or strikes on donbas and any russian attack or incursion into ukraine would not only ignite conflict, it would also violate the bedrock principles of national sovereignty, territorial integrity and self-determination. so this is something we're taking very seriously both as a strong partner of ukraine and one of 30 members of nato were unified in opposition to russia's attempts to undermine the horse core values and threaten peace and security in europe so let me be clear on where thingsstand . first, conflict is not inevitable. there is still time and space

for diplomacy. the united states in lockstep with that with our allies and partners has offered russia a path away from crisis and towards greater security. and the department of defense will continue to supportthose diplomatic efforts . second, the united states remains committed to helping ukraine defend itself through security assistance material . since 2014 we've committed more than $2.7 billion in security assistance toukraine . that includes more security assistance to ukraine in the past year $650 million that any previous time and so in december president biden authorized $200 million in assistance. which included additional javelins and other anti-armor weapons, grenade launchers, large quantities of artillery

andsmall arms ammunition and other equipment . those deliveries are ongoing. indeed, another shipment just arrived today. and third the united states will stand shoulder to shoulder with our nato allies . that includes reinforcing security on nato's eastern flank. as you know we placed thousands of us troops on prepared to deploy all orders earlier this week. if nato acts responsibly we will be ready to go. thesituation on ukraine's borders is changing rapidly . but as we look ahead, there are a couple ofthings we can count on . one, this department will continue to provide president biden with options to defend our national security interests in response to russian actions. and 2, we will stay united with our nato allies .

earlier this week i spoke with my polish counterpart. yesterday i spoke with my romanian counterpart and this morning i had two very good conversations with counterparts in france and germany . as we've made clear in addition to the significant economic and diplomatic costs that russia will incur, a move on ukraine will accomplish the very thing russia says it does not want. a nato alliance strengthens and resolved onits western flank . the united states will contribute to nato's response forces . and we will coordinate with our nato allies. we will make sure they have the capabilities that they need to defendthemselves . article 5 is clear on this point. attack against one nato member is an attack againstus all . and as president biden has said the united states holds

this as a sacred obligation. we will do right by that commitment. and mister putin can do the right thing as well. there's no reason that this situation has to devolve into conflict. he can choose to the escalate . you can order his troops away . he can choose dialogue and diplomacy. whatever hedecides , the united states will stand with our allies and partners. i want to briefly address two other items before we open it up for questions. first, on wednesday i was honored to join the president when he signed an executive order to help us deliver on the promise that all men and women in uniform should be able to serve their country free from fear of violence or harassment .

this executive order will improve the military justice system's response to sexual assault, harassment and relatedcrimes and i welcome it . and finally as you know yesterday i directed changes to the departments civilian harm mitigation and response policy oversight and process. within 90 days we will unveil a plan to specify the range of actions that we will take on civilian harm mitigation and response including important steps building on knowledge and best practices and tools for preventing and mitigating and responding to civilian harm. but i also ordered some immediate steps including the establishment of a civilian harm center of excellence reporting to me. that will compel us to learn from our mistakes and to make changes in stride. i know personally how hard we work to avoid civilian harm

and to abide by the law of armed conflict. but i've also said we need to do better and we will. this is a priority for me and we will ensure we are transparent as we continue this important work. so now i'll turn it over to the chairman for his part thanks secretary and good afternoon to everyone. i appreciate having an opportunity to address all of you. ukraine has the right to be independent and they'vebeen an independent country since 1991 . russia signed the budapest memorandum 1994 with the united states and great britain that guaranteed the territorial integrity and sovereignty of ukraine. it's a policy of the united states government to continue to support an independent ukraine and their goals. and we are continuing our

effort to enhance their ability to protect themselves. we strongly encourage russia to stand down and pursue a resolution through diplomacy. armed force should always be the last resort. success here is through dialogue. the russian federation has amassed upwards at this time of over 100,000 ground forces , air forces, naval forces, special forces, cyber, electronic warfare, command and control, logistics engineers and other capabilities along the ukraine border. ukraine is the second largest country in europe. with a population of 44 million. it's divided in the middle by the river nico. prominent terrain includes flat open plains and there are abundance of rivers and lakes and there's a high water table.

when that high water table freezes, it makes it for optimal conditions for cross-country track and wheeled vehiclemaneuver . the city of kyiv has a population of nearly 3 million people. other major population centers include karkov and dnieper to the west. there are people throughout ukraine and if we break out on a scale and scope that is possible the civilian population will suffer immensely . ukraine military has about 150,000 active-duty servicemembers with many more in the reserves . they consist of multiple units. see, air, land and are currently disposed in an array throughout ukraine with a high density on the eastern section and a line of contact

in the donbas region. ukraine has all units and they maintain artillery, air defense, bases, depots and have a highly regarded territorial force and people's militia. their combat capabilities have improved since 2014 when russia annexed illegally crimea. but they need additional help to defend themselves. especially from an invasion force the size that russia is currently massing. if russia chooses to invade ukraine it will not be cost free. in terms of casualties or other significant effects. there is a small contingent of us and nato advisors and trainers currently in ukraine . the united states has zero offense if combat weapons systems nor any permanent forces nor bases in ukraine.

our role is limited and that we help train, advise and assist with tactics techniques and procedures. we participate in institutional development with the ukrainian ministry of defense. as the secretary of defense has noted we continue to provide material support to ukraine along withmany other countries from nato and we are ready , capable and prepared to uphold our obligation under treaty to nature. as mentioned by thesecretary , and attack against one nato ally is an attack against all . nato has significant military capability. nato has approximately 130+ brigades of maneuver forces not including us forces. 93 squadrons of high-end fighters, 4 carriers, many

more surface combatants. the military capability of nato is very significant. in addition to bordering russia and belarus and moldova ukraine has a border with four nato members. poland, slovakia, hungary and romania. the president and secretary of defense authorized the united states military to increase our resident readiness in the event we have to reinforce or assist our nato allies. work is not inevitable as the secretary said. the right answer here is a diplomatic solution. and i look forward to your questions . >> thanks chairman, we will turn to questions now and start with lita. >> thank you for doing this. mister secretary first can you say whether any us troops

have begun moving either into or in and around europe and if not, can you give us an idea when that might happen? and secondarily, how much risk is it to send additional us troops to the eastern flank? russia even today has said they see no room for compromise right now. does sending additional us forces to that region and put in an excuse to make an incursion into theukraine ? >> i think you can assume any time we think about troop movements we always consider the impact that is going to have on leaders minds and

their decision-making. i do make two points and you raised this earlier . we haven't actually moved any troops. we put troops on higher alert. the second point i would make is even if and when we do move troops, the purpose of those troops deploying would be to reissue our allies or directly get support of nato or both. i think that again, before we make any decisions on readiness or movement of troops we always take those things into mind. with other leaders, the impact on other leaders. >> i just an what the secretary said. we have moved anybody yet. where increasing our loads and in terms your question about that, whether that was

provocative to russia we have no intent whatsoever that i'm aware of of putting offenses forces to attack russia and i don't think that's nato's intent atall . that's engineered by russia and president clinton as an overactive coercion against ukraine. >> we will go to the phone now. john, i think helene cooper is up so we will go to her next. >> thank you secretary austin and general milley for doing this. i have questions for both of you. for secretary austin you said in your opening statement vladimir putin has the capability to enter ukraine. have you put in place the military hardware you would need to launch a full-scale invasion of all of ukraine , the whole country and for you

and general milley, both of you have been military officers for 4decades . you certainly iraq and afghanistan after 9/11. you see more of her and pursuing their own nuclear ambition. i'm wondering does this feel different to you? how would you characterize the crisis with ukraine and russia in terms of its potential for great conflict? >> in terms of whether or not he has enough forces to conduct a full-scale invasion helene, you are the chairman say earlier he's got north of 100,000 troops in the border region . that gives him a number of options and what he's done is he's continued to move troops and resources into the region is increase his options. and so we won't predict where his decisions will take him, but we remain concerned about

the range of options that he could pursue and we will stay focused on these problems. and i'll turn to the chairman here for his thoughts. >> in terms of the size of the forces that are massed, they could. its potential.we don't think there's been a decision as the secretary made but with troops and you've got combined arms formation, artillery, rockets. you got there and all the other parts that go with it there's the potential they could launch a warning, that's possible and there's a wide scale of options available to russian leadership and the best option they should pick is a diplomatic one in terms of how this feels, your second part of the question. as we look at that number of troops and that amount of hardware that's in the border region, it far and away

exceeds what we typically see them do for exercise so it's very concerning. where this could lead us in terms of a type of conflict or work with the region in terms of future activities, i won't bother to speculate on that. helene, i would just say that are focused on making sure that we do our part to provide options to support and reinforce nato if in fact he does make a decision to invade ukraine. >> does it feel different, sure. it does feel different. in terms of what we've seen in the past but this is larger in scale and scope in amassing of forces than

anything we've seen in recent memory and i think you'd have to go back quite a while into the cold war days to see something of this magnitude. they do annual exercises and we will watch those closely but this is different so we will monitor veryclosely but yes, it does feeldifferent . >> will come back to the room and go back to david . >> so the president has ruled out sending us troops into ukraine . does that mean that the us military would not be used if an evacuation of kiev became necessary west and mark. >> as you've indicated david, the presidents been clear that he does not intend to put combat troops into ukraine for the purpose of conducting combat operations. any troops that we deploy if we deploy troops to that region are troops that are already in the region have

multiple capabilities and so as we conduct our planning we look at a range of options that we may have to pursue but again, to the point that you made earlier david, the president has been clear about notemploying troops in ukraine for combat purposes . >> does that without using us troops for evacuation purposes. >> i would speculate david but we prepare for a range of activities and options. that's what we've always done and that's what you canexpect us to do going forward . >> david, the state department has issued travel advisories in effect right now and those advisories today were more to the effect of don't travel to ukraine if you're an american citizen

and if you're in the ukraine you should consider leaving the ukraine. you can go to our website and see what they put up . >> they didn't forestall an evacuation crisis. >> that's also correct. >> rest assured david that whatever task the united states military is called upon to accomplishwill be prepared to do it . let's go back to the phone and reached out to phil stewart. >> i have a question for both of you. secretary austin, president biden's decision to rule out us forces, russia early in the crisis, must have impacted begins calculus in some way. how do you assess it impacted his calculus and do you have any concern about strategy other than that ambiguity in as far as deterrence and to

milley, if president biden responds with economic sanctions how do you anticipate russia will retaliate and how are you preparing for potential retaliation and potential retaliation against the homeland byrussian use of cyber warfare ? >> tank still. i would speculate about what or how president clinton is thinking. i think that's been the question that everybody has. what if he did something like this, what would he possibly want to achieve. so i won't speculate on that. i would say that our focus is to make sure that whatever happens, we are prepared to reassure our allies in the region and support nato's efforts and of course this is

about nato and the alliance. i would remind you nato is a defensive alliance. again, you've heard the chairman talk about the resources that nato has and i think they are considerable resources but again it's important to make sure that we keep the alliance united. >> still, i would go the military is prepared to do whatever we are directed to do and we are increasing our readiness postures or units and we will be prepared to execute whatever the president and secretary of defense require of us. with respect to your question about the homeland and cyber and all that, we have capabilities. i'm not going to go into them but we've got a significant amount of capabilities to defend and do whatever is necessary to protect the homeland .

>> let me stick with the phone here and i think nancy is out there. >> i have a question for each of you. mister secretary this week we hurt heard about military commitments from mark to defend the alliance. i've also talked about one decision in particular and that is canada's decision to keep 400 trainers in the ukraine. the us has happened about now. would you consider sending more advisers for doesn't believe there is enough there to determine russian aggression and chairman, do you believe the ukrainian armed forces have taken all the necessary steps to defend against a large-scale russian invasion or do you see that push to not provoke panic and the ukrainian government has notdone enough . >> let me at the top thank canada and our other allies for what they continue to do alongside us to support the ukraine. i applaud their efforts and certainly we have had advisers and trainers there

since 2014 as the chairman indicatedearlier . and we remain focused on providing all of the assistance in terms of training and advising that ukraine feels it needs. and we work that issue with them on a consistentbasis . i would also say it's less about the specific number but about more about the capabilities that you bring and what you're focusing on. in some cases it may take several more types of trainers to train on a specific event or skill. in other cases less so. the rest assured we are in constant imitation with canada, uk and everyone that's providing assistance to ukraine at this point.

>> i'm not going to comment on the disposition of readiness of the ukraine forces in any kind of detail. i don't think that would be appropriate to do that in the current situation. >> are. >> question for both of you, mister secretary. you thought a bit about us troops providing reassurance and deterrence to the eastern flank of europe. can you help people understand a little bit more about what that means in terms of what us troops would be doing to fulfill that mission. how do you know when you're done you don't send troops unless you have an exit strategy. what would it take for you to ever trust vladimir putin and general, you laid out some pretty dire scenarios if the russians decided to make that

move. could you explain more? you mentioned forexample the capital . how disastrous could it be in your assessment? are you looking at massive civilian casualties western mark are you looking at massive refugee flows? the impact on the security of europe as it existed for so many decades if this scenario you're laying out were tocome true . >> in terms of our reassurance efforts barb, as you know we have had a number of forces in the region training with the eastern european countries. those forces and that's been going on for.>> sometime. those forces provide great value. just their presence reassures our partners there that we are interested in them.

interested in helping them. the types of things we do with them routinely is train with them and enable them and really increase their level of readiness and so that's been very helpful to them. and it has strengthened our bonds with our allies and partners in the region. these are temporary deployments and so again, we will continue to sort this out as we go forward but again, we are focused on nato. we're focused on restoring our allies and that is what this is about. in terms of trusting putin i don't think this is about trusting putin. this is about our allies trusting us. that's really what we're focused on. and mister putin at some point in time will reveal what he's thinking but again, i'm not sure that he's made

the final decisions on what he's going to do here. >> our brother, let me first say as the secretary set up front right now we don't think final decisions have been made. to conduct any sort of offense of operation into ukraine by the russians and we firmly believe there's still room for a diplomatic outcome. having said thatgiven the type of forces that operate the ground maneuver forces, the artillery, the ballistic missiles , apackage together . if that was unleashed on the ukraineit would be significant , very significant result in a significantamount of casualties . and you can imagine what that might look like in dense urban areas all along roads and so on. it would be horrific, it would be terrible and it'snot necessary and we think a dramatic outcome is the wayto go here . >> . quickly, can you keep either

of you keep us forces from having to deal with russian forces directly if you're reinforcing eastern europe? when us forces intentionally could be in missions against russian forces, can you keep them away from russian forces ? >> again, our presence here helps to reassure our partners on the frontline countries there. and you know barb that we have an article 5 commitment to ournato partners . if putin were to attack one of those countries that force that commitment, that's an ironclad commitment. the president has said a number of times we will live up to that commitment so but again, our focus is not on fighting in ukraine, it's on reassuring our nato partners and allies.

>> let's go to lily from abc. >> thank you to both of you for doing this briefing. i'd like to go back to something lisa asked at the top in the way that you framed the response of provocations and how their perceived byrussia . typically you do not disclose the priority orders particularly when you're talking about large numbersof forces like the 8500 you put up this week . what was the calculus in doing that and are you sending a message to russia and is it possible that the way they see that, they may see that themselves as a provocation. >> again, our focus is on making sure that we are ready to live up to our commitment to nato should the nato

response force be activated. this putting our forces on a shorter string and enables us to get there in a shorter time. again i think that provides reassurance to nato that we are ready to live up to our commitments. in terms of what putin thinks and the way he feels about things, it's hard to predict. we take those kind of things into consideration but again, if you look at the forces that he has moved into the region that he continues to move into the region, there was no provocation that caused him to move those forces so you know, we will continue to listen to what he says and watch what he does.

>> i would echo all of that. with respect to the pdo forces for 20 years in iraq, afghanistan has announced when forces are rotating etc. and we attempt to be transparent with you and congress and with theamerican people on the use and deployment of military forces . alerted based on direction from the president and secretary of defense increased the readiness data some of these forces so the forces have been told. and we think it's a better from a transparency standpoint better to inform you, the media and congress of the forces that are out there that are being alerted. in addition assuring and deterring with respect to our nato allies but it's important to be transparent with you and the american people about what we're doing . >> we have to get going, thank you so much